


Honey Poured Over Thunder

by Currer_Bell



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Character, F/M, Gen, Independent North (ASoIaF), Jon Snow is Not Called Aegon, Jon Snow is called Jon Dustin, Jon is good at singing, M/M, Minor Brandon Stark/Catelyn Stark, Minor Canonical Character(s), Period Typical Attitudes, R Plus L Equals J, Some characters may seem out of character, The King in The North, Wanderlust, Warg Jon Snow, Warging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-05-07 06:56:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Currer_Bell/pseuds/Currer_Bell
Summary: Jon likes to travel a lot. When staying in Dorne, a friend's indiscretion gets them in trouble. As in the Prince of Dorne imprisons him, and hopes to use him as a hostage against his family.But everything is not as simple as it seems; the northmen have secrets, and the southron king has secrets. The fact that Prince Oberyn loves to hear Jon sing and might be infatuated with him, is just another complication.





	1. The Dornishman's Wife

The bed was very uncomfortable. His bed at the Golden Spear, however, was a feather bed with silk sheets the color of blood.  _So where am I?_ Last he remembered, he'd been drinking Dornish wine with Eddie and Alec in the common room downstairs. He hoped they'd not been kicked out of the inn. 

 

He vaguely remembered that something was wrong, but had no idea what. Sometimes a bit of warging could help clear one's mind. It was usually Jon's way of trying to recover memories lost to the excessive amounts of drink. Jon blinked, and he was back home, running after the scent of a young deer. He let himself enjoy the sensations of being a powerful predator for a short while before coming back. 

 

"The Others take Alec and his big mouth!" he swore. Soldiers dressed in Dornish style armor had swarmed the inn and taken him into custody last night. Alec had said something while drunk, Jon wasn't sure what. Mayhaps he'd spoken in the Old Tongue as was his wont whenever he was in his cups. Alec was a mountain clansman, and they weren't known for being subtle, discreet, or good mummers.  _It was my own fault. I should not have brought someone so obviously northern here._

 

His cell was simple; except for the bed, there was only a small window and a door to adorn the plain stone walls. He banged on the door, determined to ask about his friends' fates. Eddie carried medicinal herbs all the time; Jon hoped they wouldn't think he was here to assassinate their prince.

 

"What do you want?" a bored voice asked from outside, and Jon couldn't help thinking that his accent was fascinating. He knew many Rhoynish words were still used here even while speaking the Common Tongue, doubtless they'd had a considerable effect on the accents. 

 

"Do you mean to starve me?" Truly, what would a prisoner want? _It's not very hard to guess, he wants to be freed, and whilst he is incarcerated, he wants to be treated well and be fed well._

 

The man on the other side of the door didn't answer him. It was most frustrating to see that Dornishmen were competent captors. A short while later, a square shaped section of the door was opened, and through that the man outside handed him a tray full of food. 

 

"You like your food spicy here." Jon grimaced, the fiery peppers burning his tongue. "Would you mind fetching me a pitcher of wine? Or just ale?" Having heard nothing back, he decided to endure the foreign spices.  _Father would remind me of all the people who starve in winter if he were here. Many never get to try food such as this; spices are ridiculously expensive._

 

The next time the soldier outside talked, it was midday. Jon thought he was going to receive his midday meal, but the Dornishman opened the door and dragged him outside then escorted him to an abandoned part of the holdfast's yard. A young woman was waiting there. 

 

The woman was a few years older than him, but she was certainly no older than five-and-twenty. Her sweet, gentle voice welcomed him as if she had no idea Jon was a prisoner not a guest. She had fair hair and deep blue eyes; her coloring reminded him of Val, but in every other aspect, it seemed, she was very different. She looked the very picture of an innocent, pious maiden.

 

"My lady," Jon addressed her, inclining his head courteously.  

 

"My lord," she replied. "Please, would you take a stroll with me? The blood oranges have just ripened, and the yard looks all the more beautiful for it."

 

 _As if I have any other choice_ , he thought, snorting. The Dornish had figured out Jon's identity. Uncle Brandon would be so angry with him, and Father would be worried; he always was. Jon was the sort of son whose parents should be worried about. _How could I be so stupid? I am a man grown. I have a daughter of my own._

"Were my friends arrested as well?" There was no reason for them to be held captive; traveling was not a crime after all. _Unless they know Eddie is highborn as well. I have no idea if they'd see Alec as a nobleman or not. He has an old last name, but he's a clansman._

 

"Yes," the fair woman answered with a smile, as if she was delivering great news. "I promise you, my uncle treats his captives honorably."

 

"May I ask why your honorable uncle has ordered the arrest of three innocent men?" It was a pointless question, but some questions just had to be asked in order to make way for more important inquiries.

 

The niece of the Prince of Dorne squeezed his hand. "And may I ask think why three northern noblemen decided to venture so far south?"

 

It was done. She and her prince knew who they were. Jon and Eddie had plenty letters and other objects that could have helped them discover their identities. Jon had even  foolishly carried weaponry engraved with his personal coat of arms. "It's called wanderlust, my lady. I'm afraid I came down with that particular disease when I was still as green as summer grass." 

 

"Nevertheless, your royal uncle will be very upset to hear his nephew is trapped in a foreign land." This woman was infuriating with her soft hands and gentle manner. It was all a mummer's farce, for Jon's instincts told him she was dangerous. 

 

He stopped abruptly. "Is there any point to this conversation?" 

 

"Farewell, my lord Dustin." She walked away, and Jon was escorted back to his lonely cell. _Damn it._

 

 


	2. Familial Relations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for not updating. Real life has been crazy these past few months, and I also had writer's block.😒

Jon dreamed of her first, little Raya with her mother's honey colored hair and her father's long face. Then he saw Barrowton through Ghost's eyes, the shops opening and the smallfolk starting their day as the wolf watched from an obscure location.

 

When the dreaming ended, he sat up slowly, groaning in pain. No matter how many nights he slept on this bed, he couldn't get used to it. There was scarcely any linen, and only a thin blanket. Jon wondered just how did his life become so boring that he had nothing else to think about. 

 

He'd come to Dorne by way of Lys, and he'd been in Essos for a year. Eddie and Alec had joined him later. Essos was full of surprises and adventures, but Barrowton and its simple wooden houses were much more appealing now that he was a hostage.

 

He supposed that the Prince of Dorne and his southron king would threaten the families of the hostages. If they thought the north would join their so called "seven kingdoms" to save three careless men's lives, they were wrong. Jon was his father's heir, but Eddie was a second son, and Alec was a very distant cousin of the current Lord Norrey. Lord Norrey wasn't even a real lord. They simply weren't important enough. "I suppose they would assassinate the king's family to avenge us," he thought out loud, "but the peace has lasted for a hundred years, and no one would like to go back to those constant battles."

 

He hoped his lord father or Uncle Brandon would take care of Raya if he died. On second thoughts, he hoped they wouldn't take her away from her mother. Val was fierce and would fight to death before letting anyone take her girl, but Uncle Brandon was a king with thousands of soldiers at his command. 

 

He was going out of his mind, thinking about death and all the things he wouldn't get to experience when someone knocked on the door. 

 

"Have you finished your supper?" 

 

He hated that man, Jon decided. That man had announced the arrival of his meals for the last sennight, and whenever Jon asked for a meeting with their prince, he would laugh very loudly. "Yes. Do you think you could bring me a book or something?" 

 

The Dornishman took the empty plate through the door. After pausing for effect, he answered, "No."

 

_If I had a piece of parchment, I could write something using that horrible gravy as ink. Warging a bird is very difficult, but I have nothing else to do, and I can hear some birds singing everyday. They can't be very far._

 

"You're coming out today," his jailer continued, unaware of Jon's pitiful plans. 

 

 _Thank the gods._ "I am?" 

 

"The prince wants to see you." 

 

Jon caught a glimpse of the palace before he was rushed inside. Dornish architecture seemed to lean more towards beauty, while in the north practicality and strength were priority. Through sunlit corridors and oddly empty halls, he was led to the prince's solar. Red curtains made of a silk so fine that one could almost see through them were dancing the weak breeze, and chairs made from the golden wood of the Summer Isles were beautifully scattered about the room.  _That's a nice way of displaying the colors of your house._ When his eyes found the prince, Jon was disappointed to see an old man sitting on a chair. He remembered hearing that the ruler of Dorne was gout-ridden, and indeed the prince had taken care to cover his legs with a blanket. "Prince Doran, I assume?" 

 

"You assume correctly." Doran invited him to sit with an elegant hand gesture. "You look very young. What is your age?"

 

"Eight-and-ten," he replied, thinking his age could hardly be considered valuable information. The prince himself looked old enough to be Jon's grandfather, though that was most likely to be a result of his illness.

 

"I understand you are the son of Lord Dustin, and also King Brandon's nephew."

 

He snorted. "According to you southerners, my uncle is not a king; there is no King in the North. The dragon king claims the title of the "Lord of the Seven Kingdoms." The North is one of those kingdoms."

 

Doran beckoned an attendant forward so as to pick up one of those famous blood oranges from atop a pyramid of them on the plate the servant was holding. When offered, Jon refused, though trying local delicacies was one of his main reasons for traveling. "Let us put away formalities," Doran finally answered. "You are here because you are related to an important man. If that man wishes to call himself a king, I shall not begrudge him the title." 

 

He was deeply offended. This man talked of Jon's royal uncle as though he was a petulant toddler pretending to be a lawful monarch. _Their dragon King is the pretender._ "I do not like your reasoning," Jon told him. "We had done nothing wrong when your men attacked me and my friends, and if I deserve to remain your hostage because of unfortunate familial relations, it would at least ease my mind to know my friend are free."

 

Before he was done talking, from nowhere, it seemed, appeared another Dornishman. After the single attendant's departure, Jon had thought he was alone with the Lord of Sunspear. _He must have been hiding in the shadows... behind a tapestry, mayhaps._

 

The unknown intruder was a salty Dornishman _,_ he reflected, same as the prince. Somehow when Jon first looked upon him, he felt as though fate had in store for him exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows.

 

The man's black eyes narrowed as he spoke, "Your loyalty to your companions is impressive. I think you must be an impressive person in general, for I never thought I'd hear someone refer to the state of having royal blood as 'unfortunate familial relations.'"

 

From his wheelchair, Doran looked up at the man with exasperated fondness and introduced him as his younger brother. Jon needed no more explanation; while in Essos he had heard of the notorious Red Viper. 

 

He could not help but grin. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Prince Oberyn. With regards to my unusual wording, I have to admit one tends to grow resentful of one's royal relative when one has to sleep in a cell for him." 

 

Prince Oberyn Nymeros Martell was tall, not in the brutish way most northmen were; he was more slender and graceful. Jon had not his direwolf with him, but if he did, he could have smelled the danger on this man.  

 

"I am glad to have met you as well," he replied, plopping down in a golden chair. Then, addressing his liege lord, "Doran, you should not have kept me away from him. I have traveled far, but never have I set foot on any land north of the Neck. This could've been my only chance to meet a northman." 

 

"Your brother seems like a frank, no nonsense sort of man," he told Doran, ignoring the rude way Oberyn talked of northmen as though they were freaks to be showed off. "Perhaps _he_ might like to inform me of the manner in which you mean to use me against my family." 

 

The Prince of Dorne sighed. "You would be an important hostage in a time of war, but now we are at peace. Other than demanding a ransom, I do not know how else we could use you. King Brandon would not kneel to our southron king simply to save his nephew's life; that's obvious." 

 

"So?" He didn't know what to make of that. He wasn't influential enough to be kept a hostage, yet not low-ranking enough to simply be set free. 

 

"So I am awaiting my king's judgement," said Doran. "In the meantime, I have arranged for you to be moved to more comfortable quarters. My brother will show you the way."

 

On their way to Jon's new cage, he tried to talk to his companion, but Prince Oberyn silenced him with a bemused look. Jon thanked him once they'd found his chamber, noting the two men that would stand guard outside. The next day, he received a few books from a maidservant. He almost laughed in her face when he saw The Seven-pointed Star among them.

 

Once Jon had become desperately bored enough to resort to reading the actual holy book of The Seven Who Are One, he found it much more interesting than he expected. There was the usual stinking horseshit of the implausible stories and impossibly strict moral codes, but that just meant he had more things to tell his daughter and Bran about if he ever went back north. He had encountered many different religions in his travels, surprised to find so many similarities between them. 

 

"Thinking of converting?" A mocking voice inquired. 

 

Jon was so proud of himself for not being absolutely freaked out. When had the damn man entered his chamber? _Snakey_. "No. I might have considered it, but the hierarchy is just so..." _Foreign_ , he thought. _Of course._

 

Prince Oberyn smiled. "The Old Gods have no priests, right?"

 

"There's just the trees and the old stories." Jon loved this simple way of worship. He had always felt right at home in a godswood. 

 

"That sounds nice," the Dornishman allowed. "What sort of stories, pray tell?" 

 

Jon had learnt what he could tell foreigners, and what he couldn't at a very young age. It was no hardship to think of something. "They say no man can lie in front of a heart tree." 

 

"Truth, then." Oberyn nodded, like the old tale was thought-inspiring. "You put much value in truth, I take it?" 

 

"Indeed we do." Jon had no idea why this conversation seemed so tense, why he was so flustered. It wasn't flirting; people never discussed gods and honesty while flirting, and after all why _would_ they flirt? Oberyn was almost forty years of age. He was much older than what Jon would deem attractive.  _I'm only imagining it._

 

The not-flirting continued the next day and the day after. They would talk of horses and jousting, the banking system of eastern lands, the famous courtesans of Braavos, steersmanship and many other different things. Before this, Jon had not noticed how much he had learned during his travels. Yet there was much more to learn; this dark-eyed Dornish prince intended to write a book of all the strange things he had seen.

 

It took the few extra days for Jon to realize he was attracted to him; the way a pigeon would be attracted to a viper. Cautiously, irrationally. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for Targs to claim lordship over the north even though it's a separate kingdom comes from when they did the same thing to Dorne.  
> About names A) Raya was the name of a historical Stark lady. B) Robb wasn't named after King Robert in this verse, but he is still called Robb. In this case, Robb is short for Robett (like Robett Glover, I gathered it could be a common northern name.)  
> 


End file.
